R help - Nov 2004 - Calling Other (non-C or Fortran) Programs from R

Hi!

I wonder if anyone has experiences of calling other programs 
from R (i.e., not C or Fortran programs).

Specifically I want to call LEM from R and execute it in a 
loop to process its output in R.  Thanks,

Tim Liao

On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 08:50:25 -0600, Tim F Liao <tfliao at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Hi!
>
>I wonder if anyone has experiences of calling other programs 
>from R (i.e., not C or Fortran programs).
>
>Specifically I want to call LEM from R and execute it in a 
>loop to process its output in R.  Thanks,
I don't know what LEM is.  If it's a language that can produce DLLs or
.so's, then it should be straightforward to call them.  If it's a
program using standard input and output, the system() function is what
you want.

Duncan Murdoch

Thanks to both Duncan Murdoch and Brian Ripley.  LEM indeed 
is the program that Brian referred to in his response, a 
program for latent class/trait loglinear and event history 
analysis compiled with Borland Pascal.  There's a dos 
version and a windows version.  Not sure the program will 
produce dll's, but I'll do a bit exploration and report back.

Tim Liao

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 18:57:52 +0000 (GMT)
>From: Prof Brian Ripley <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>  
>Subject: Re: [R] Calling Other (non-C or Fortran) Programs 
from R  
>To: Duncan Murdoch <murdoch at stats.uwo.ca>
>Cc: Tim F Liao <tfliao at uiuc.edu>, <r-help at
stat.math.ethz.ch>
>
>On Sun, 7 Nov 2004, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 7 Nov 2004 08:50:25 -0600, Tim F Liao 
<tfliao at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> >Hi!
>> >
>> >I wonder if anyone has experiences of calling other 
programs 
>> >from R (i.e., not C or Fortran programs).
>> >
>> >Specifically I want to call LEM from R and execute it in 
a 
>> >loop to process its output in R.  Thanks,
>> 
>> I don't know what LEM is.  If it's a language that can 
produce DLLs or
>> .so's, then it should be straightforward to call them.  
If it's a
>> program using standard input and output, the system() 
function is what
>> you want.
>
>Nor do, I, but my guess is that it is the program referred 
to at
>
>http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jsuebersax/soft.htm
#LEM
>
>Perhaps Tim F Liao can enlighten us.
>
>-- 
>Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
>Professor of Applied Statistics,  
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
>University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 
(self)
>1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
>Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>

Here's my report on the issue:

The command 'system' combined with either 'scan' 
or 'read.table' (depending on what I want to do with the 
output in each step) worked beautifully.

Cheers,

Tim Liao